Three Years Gone
by Jesse-Kips
Summary: Sherlock left John behind because he wanted to keep him safe. It was the right choice, and he'd do it again, but that doesn't mean he enjoyed it.


**A/N:** Written for this prompt: We have quite a few stories that have Sherlock disappearing for three years post-Reichenbach, but they're all from John's perspective. Can we get Sherlock's three years of being separated from John? With Mycroft knowing Sherlock's alive, and keeping him updated on John's life ("you said you'd prefer to be informed, little brother")? Or Sherlock out on his own, wondering and fearing and hoping that John will still forgive him when he comes home? Previously posted on the meme. Also, totally unbeta'd.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing to do with Sherlock, unfortunately :'(

* * *

The first package reaches him in Paris. He picks it up from the front desk and takes it up to his room, then dumps it onto the bed. Then he ignores it for the next four hours – he didn't ask for Mycroft to interfere.

He cracks at 2am, unable to sleep and without his violin to soothe him.

It holds only two things: a photograph and a letter, written on Mycroft's usual heavy stationary. The photograph is of his grave, just after what must have been his funeral. It is covered with dark, fresh earth, and John stands alone at the side of it. His face looks... Sherlock cannot even describe the emotions present on his face, in the new lines carved around his mouth. It is deeper than grief, than sorrow, and everything in Sherlock aches to reach out to him and take the pain away.

But he knew this would happen. He cannot spare John this grief, but he can make sure that that is all which befalls him.

He turns the picture over, face down onto the bed, and then picks up the letter.

_I thought you might like to see what your absence is doing to those you purport to care about._

_Make sure it is brief, Sherlock. _

_MH._

He crumples it up and sets it alight in the rubbish bin. The ensuing fire alarm is very satisfying.

* * *

After that, the letters are few and far between. It is not safe for regular correspondence, not with Sherlock needing to stay hidden and his constant movements. He checks almost every day though – desperate to know what Mycroft will tell him about John.

One day, three months after Sherlock faked his death, John's blog is deleted. The last few entries had been simple, such as _Had another nightmare_, or _Nothing happened to me today._

But this deletion means that Sherlock can no longer go back and read the entry John made about his death, the one which was so important to convincing all those who Moriarty left behind that he will be unable to come after them.

It had been painful to read, and not just because Sherlock was aware that each, grief-laden word was based on a lie. It was painful because John had exposed his heart on his blog, painting a picture of Sherlock as a good man and a hero and as a loss to the world. John had shown the world how much he had cared for Sherlock, and it had almost torn Sherlock's heart in two. But now he would never be able to read those carefully crafted words ever again, never hear John's voice in his head as he explained why he would miss his eccentric housemate.

Sherlock breaks his laptop as he throws it against the hostel wall when the link refuses to connect for the fifteenth time, and has to wait a week for enough money to buy another one.

* * *

This time Sherlock opens the letter as soon as he reaches the privacy of his room. He misses John fiercely now, a constant ache in his chest. He constantly see things, places, and thinks how much John would like them, stores something away to tell him, and the painful realisation that John thinks he's dead stops him dead every time he remembers.

The letter is in reply to one he had sent Mycroft after John's blog had disappeared. He asked for money, for information, and in small, small letters at the bottom, information about John.

_I offered Dr Watson a much more lucrative employment than the surgery, as he now has the free time unencumbered by your cases. He threw a skull at me. It seems, in your absence, he has picked up your more childish tendencies._

_The money is in the account you requested, and the information on the encrypted network we began when you were twelve._

_MH._

The image of John throwing the skull at Mycroft makes Sherlock smile - no doubt Mycroft hadn't been expecting it, and had been unable to dodge fully. Warmth springs up in his stomach, and for a moment it is just as though John is there with him.

Only a moment, though. Soon enough he is back on his own.

* * *

The next letter comes while he is in Poland. A part of him balks at the knowledge that Mycroft is watching him closely enough to know his whereabouts – he has been trying to remain invisible, but it seems that his brother can always find him, but the majority of him too pleased about the continuing knowledge of John.

_Mrs Hudson reports that Dr Watson is now leaving the flat almost every day, if only to go to work. He has lost weight, but she is planning on 'feeding him up.' I have him under constant surveillance, so do not fear on that quarter._

_I have information regarding Moran in Switzerland. Ask Julien for the information._

_MH._

He sends Mrs Hudson a gift basket, filled with John's favourite foods, and a note signed by _a fan of Sherlock Holmes_. He hopes it helps her to make John eat – he has never enjoyed it when John goes off his food, and starts to waste away in front of him. This time is even worse, because Sherlock cannot be there to help in person.

He sends another gift basket each week for the next month, until a photograph is sent of John, in his favourite stripy jumper, looking healthier.

* * *

The Ukraine is dull and cold and Sherlock does not wish to linger. The night he catches over thirty men, each more linked to Moriarty's schemes than the last, and delivers them to the local police with the evidence of their crimes pinned to their chests, he packs to leave as soon as he steps into the hotel.

He only receives the next package because the woman on the front desk chases him out on the street to give it to him. She is young, and looks at him with infatuation, but all Sherlock sees when he looks down at her face is that she is not John. Her eyes are brown and her face unlined and there is nothing about her to tempt him.

He turns away without saying thank you.

_Dr Watson has started to learn the violin. I have gifted him with lessons with your old teacher. He has reported that the Dr is not gifted, but very dedicated._

_Your work in Madrid has caused shockwaves in London, and I have been rounding up the names you sent to me._

_MH._

This one comes without a photograph.

The next night he spends in a bed, Sherlock lies, unmoving, imagining John's fingers on the strings of his violin. His hands would be steady – surgeon's hands, after all, and he would make it create music no matter how long it took him to learn.

John had always been dedicated to the things he cared most about.

He hears violin music in his dreams for the next week, out of tune, scratchy, but beautiful.

* * *

Belarus is even less interesting to visit when Sherlock is aware that he cannot simply return home to Baker Street once he is done. The locals are becoming more and more irritating - he had not thought to meet someone who dismayed him as much as Anderson but has been proven wrong on that account. He has destroyed another cache of Moriarty's agents, but he still has so very far to go.

The sight of Mycroft's handwriting, sharp and untidy, on a letter underneath his door soothes some of the anger in his chest.

_Dr Watson visited me today. He mentioned you once, in passing. I believe that he was attempting to spare me from having to discuss my deceased brother. It felt most objectionable to fake my own grief, Sherlock. I hope you will not force me to do so indefinitely._

_Moran is not working alone. Romania holds an important agent. Instructions to follow._

_MH._

That John would offer Mycroft his condolences in any way he could is no surprise. That it affected Mycroft enough that he would mention it to Sherlock, is.

He sometimes thinks he has been unfair to Mycroft, asking him to bear the weight of Sherlock's lies. He needs his brother's help, however; cannot do this alone as much as he would like to, and so there was no real choice. It is an odd sentiment, to feel something other than disdain for his brother. He is not enjoying it.

He spends a long moment wishing he was back in London, throwing his brother out of his home and laughing with John about it, and then forces his attention back to tracing Moriarty's work through the European black markets.

* * *

The next picture is of John laughing. He still looks pale, but he is laughing, that giggle which sometimes fills Sherlock's dreams and makes him wake up grasping for a warmth on the other side of the bed which is no longer there.

He is looking at Sarah, and Sherlock feels as though someone has grasped his heart and squeezed it tight.

_Dr Watson is arranging a memorial to commemorate your death. One year gone, little brother._

_MH._

Sherlock wonders how he can be laughing like that if he still misses Sherlock enough to remember him, but knows it isn't fair. John doesn't know he could be waiting for Sherlock. Sherlock shouldn't be expecting him to.

* * *

Romania had been all but a cop out, almost too easy to hunt out and silence Moran's main accomplice. Croatia, however, is spilling over with links and minions and Sherlock has spent a month here already and is not yet finished. He is getting closer to the end, however. And this will bring him one step closer to the finish line.

His triumph over surviving a run in with two armed men in an alleyway is soured completely by the next letter from Mycroft.

_Sarah Sawyer has moved into 221b Baker Street. Your possessions and belongings still remain there, and your room is still allocated as such. Sarah does not seem pleased, but Dr Watson was adamant. Baker Street is still your home, Sherlock, even though Dr Watson does not believe you will ever reclaim it._

_MH._

It's a small comfort, that his items still reside within Baker Street. They will have been locked away, stored within his room, and the spaces they once inhabited will be filled with Sarah's clutter. He wonders if he will recognise it at all when he steps within its doors again, or if he has been displaced for good.

The day after he receives that letter, he shoots two men dead. They deserve it, would have killed him, but that is not which fuels the anger which makes him pull the trigger. He does not linger on the emotions behind his actions.

* * *

He leaves Croatia empty of Moriarty's agents. Someone will come and fill the gaps left behind, of course they will, but they are not his concern. All he cares about now is finishing his work.

He reads the next letter on a train across Europe, hidden away in a tiny compartment, holding it far, far too tightly. He wrinkles the paper.

_Dr Watson has accepted my job offer, and now works within an accident and emergency department. It is much more suited to his talents, and his colleagues are finding him a pleasure to work with._

_Moran has been spotted in America. Co-ordinates in the usual location._

_MH._

Of course they would, Sherlock thinks. John is a pleasant, funny, caring man, and an excellent Doctor. He imagines John's eyes, the way they crinkled when he smiled. The soft tone he used whenever Sherlock was injured. The way his eyes shone when Sherlock deduced. The heat of his skin and the way he let Sherlock curl a hand around his neck and pull him in close. The sharpness of his voice when Sherlock had done something 'not good.'

Yes. It is no wonder that his colleagues are finding him a pleasure to work with. John is the perfect... colleague.

* * *

Sherlock gets shot in America, a through and through wound to his left arm. Something in him likes the symmetry with John, whilst the rest of him is annoyed that Moran has now gotten ahead of him, while Sherlock was taking care of another of his companions. The trail becomes cold in Italy, and Sherlock spends a week in Nice, recuperating and planning his next moves.

_Dr Watson is going on holiday shortly, visiting Italy with Sarah Sawyer. Find attached his travel itinerary. You cannot contact him._

_MH_

Sherlock doesn't contact him. Instead, he follows John from afar for a day in Rome, dressed like a student. His camera becomes filled with photos of John, Sarah relegated to a blurred background.

He looks like himself again, content if not happy, dressed in the jumper Sherlock had always loved the most – dark blue and soft to the touch. He does not limp, although his hand shakes occasionally as he points out the sights to Sarah.

He deletes all of the photos at the end of the day, and gets on a train to Germany that evening.

* * *

On the second anniversary of his death, he is tied to a chair in a warehouse, being questioned by some local thugs.

He escapes three days later, with bruised ribs and a broken nose, and the doctor who patches him up is competent and pleasant and inot John/i. He does not call Sherlock stupid for going in there alone, or chide him for each injury as he binds it, and Sherlock feels alone, so alone, that he doesn't know how much longer he can stand it.

There is a letter waiting for him at reception. It is thin, but very welcome.

_John played the violin at your memorial yesterday. It was a simple melody, but well executed. I like to think you would have been impressed._

_Two years gone, Sherlock. _

_MH._

There is a picture enclosed. A group of people sit around, watching John play the violin. Lestrade is there, as is Mycroft and Mrs Hudson. Sherlock recognises the violin as his own, and he shivers. John's eyes are closed and his eyebrows scrunched together in concentration. Sherlock wants to kiss that knot away from between his eyebrows. Sarah is sat next to the empty chair which is obviously John's, and Sherlock looks at her face for a long moment. She looks unhappy, but Sherlock cannot tell if she is unhappy on John's behalf, or because John still mourns for him. He hopes very much it is the latter.

There is a picture of him propped up on a stand. Sherlock recognises it from the day John had forced him to go to London Zoo, and they had foiled a theft in between viewing the exhibits. It had been a good day, and John had demanded a picture to remember it by. In it, Sherlock is standing in front of the lemur exhibit, and smiling slightly because John is laughing on the other side of the camera.

Sherlock doesn't sleep that night.

* * *

There hasn't been a letter in over five months. Sherlock fears he might go mad if he has to wait any longer for news of John's wellbeing.

It has been almost two and half years since Sherlock last saw John, since he faked his own death and went to follow the path which had to be followed so that Moriarty's empire was brought down forever. He was always planning on going back to London as soon as he was able, back to _John_, but it has been so long now. Who is to say that he would be welcomed there again? He tries to think how he would react if it had been John who had done this, had hidden and lied and hurt him for three years. He likes to believe that he would be forgiving, but he cannot be certain. Would he be unable to understand how he could lie to Sherlock about something as painful and important as this?

But John has always been a better man than Sherlock, and Sherlock prays that this has not changed in the time he has been gone.

* * *

The next package holds a wedding invitation.

He burns everything Mycroft has ever sent him.

Pointless to keep holding on now.

* * *

Two months later, just a note.

_The wedding is off. It seems as though Dr Watson was not as dedicated to the path of marriage as he would have liked everyone to believe._

_I am still paying your half of the rent, despite his arguments. Dr Watson will be remaining in Baker Street. Alone._

_MH_.

Sherlock gets rid of another strand of Moriarty's web, and tries to convince himself that the lightening of his heart is because of this destruction.

He isn't able to.

* * *

Two years and eleven months after Sherlock left Switzerland as a dead man, he learns two things. The first is that there are only two things he has left to destroy: Moran and Moriarty's links in Serbia. The second comes from Mycroft's letter.

_Dr Watson was kidnapped today. I retrieved him with little trouble within a matter of hours, and he will be fine. A broken arm, concussion and a few bruises – nothing to be concerned about. He remains as capable of looking after himself as he ever was._

_He whispered your name when on pain medication._

_Moran suspects you are alive. He will come after John again to lure you out. I recommend that you set up your trap before this occurs._

_MH._

He has to go home.

Sherlock destroys the final link Moriarty had outside of England and then books his ticket back to London. Moran is there waiting for him, and their meeting will be dangerous, but all Sherlock thinks on the long flight back home is _John John John John John_.

* * *

The trap is easy to set. Mycroft has been following Moran's progress since he landed in London under his false identity, and so Sherlock tracks him to the underground gambling house with little problem.

"Couldn't stay away, Sherlock?" Moran asks him, and his tone is attempting to be tough, but Sherlock sees the cracks in his facade. Moran knows that Sherlock has removed all those he might have been able to call an ally. He is aware that Sherlock only has one more thing to remove – him. And from the sweat on his brow, he must be aware that Sherlock knows what he did to John. And how unpleased Sherlock is that he dared to touch him.

He is unaware that every other man in this room, apart from the two of them, is one of Mycroft's agents. Sherlock's brother is irritating, true, but his workforce is occasionally helpful.

Sherlock says nothing in reply.

"Come on, Sherlock! Got nothing to say?" Moran's voice is high and desperate. "Shall I tell you instead all about your little Doctor? I told him you were alive, you know. I told him all about your trips in Europe, how your death was all a hoax." He leans in close and Sherlock lets him, shakes his head slightly at Mycroft's men, who step closer to pull Moran away. He needs to know what Moran told John. "He didn't believe me at first, but I think by the end, I'd drummed it into him." His eyes are almost fever bright.

"It's over," Sherlock says. "Everything Moriarty worked for is _gone_, Moran."

Moran laughs. "Except he promised to burn the heart out of you, didn't he? You can't tell me that didn't work. You think Watson will just take you back? You think you can ever go home again?"

Sherlock throws a punch, using all his body weight just like John taught him, and watches as Moran falls to the floor. He only stays long enough to watch Mycroft's men step in and start to secure him, and then spins on his heel and walks out of the door.

He doesn't look back, but Moran's words follow him all the way back to his hotel.

* * *

The air in London smells familiar, like home. Sherlock buries himself further into his coat (second hand from Romania, heavy and warm but not the one he had been forced to leave behind in Switzerland) and walks the streets he has never forgotten.

A lot is different. There are new buildings and spaces where others have been removed. Shops have disappeared and been replaced, and the roadworks have completely moved. He spends the day wandering the streets, relearning his way around and completely aware that he is putting off having to confront John.

His new phone beeps in his pocket, and he rolls his eyes. Considering he bought it only 3 hours ago, and it isn't registered to his name, there is only one person it can be from.

_Dr Watson is at home. _

_Do try not to shock him_

_overly._

_MH_

He glares up at the nearest CCTV camera, and then down at the phone, the words on the screen, and then shoves it back into his pocket.

Then he turns and starts to walk in the direction of Baker Street.

* * *

The door to 221b looks exactly the same as when he left. It opens with the same key it did 3 years ago, the key he has kept on him throughout his years away, hidden safely in his pocket with the hope that he'll be able to use it again one day.

The stairs have been varnished, a light brown, and the hallway has been painted green. There is no noise from Mrs Hudson's rooms, and so Sherlock gives all his attention to the seventeen steps in front of him, and climbing them slowly, one by one.

He pushes open the door to the flat. The room looks different than he remembers, neater; the bookshelves are no longer overflowing with books, the desk is clear of all but a single laptop, there is a new television. But Sherlock's old chair is still there, and the skull still sits in the mantelpiece, and Sherlock's spare scarf still hangs on the coat rack.

He takes a step forward, and the floor creaks beneath his feet where it hadn't before. A slight noise comes from the kitchen, the sound of crockery being put down, and then light footsteps, one step slightly heavier than the other. _John's_ footsteps.

"Mrs Hudson? I thought you were going out for the day?"

The sound of John's voice makes Sherlock close his eyes, soak up the noise. He had forgotten the exact tone of John's voice when he spoke, the way he pronounced his vowels. Something clicks back into place again as the knowledge returns.

John walks into the living room from the kitchen, a dishcloth held in his left hand; his right arm is in a cast. He looks older and thinner, but still basically the same. He is wearing his cream jumper, his hair is longer, and his eyes are wide and confused and bright. Sherlock catalogues all of this before John's eyes flicker, and he wavers in place.

"John," Sherlock says, panicked, and steps closer, one hand raised ready to catch John if he falls, if he faints, and John throws one of his own arms up in reply.

"Don't," he says, voice low. "Just stay there a minute."

For the next few minutes, the only sound to fill 221b is John's harsh breathing. Sherlock feels as though he cannot get enough breath in his lungs – he needs to know what John thinks about his reappearance, needs to know that he hasn't destroyed their relationship for good.

"It's really you?" John asks, finally, and Sherlock nods.

"Yes."

"You didn't die then?" John says, voice monotone. "Moran was telling the truth?"

Sherlock clenches his hands into fists in the pockets of his coat. "No, John. I didn't die."

"I see." John looks at him then, eyes flat and emotionless, but his eyes are still the brown Sherlock remembers, the exact shade of which he has not seen for almost three years, no matter how much he searched for it.

John still telegraphs his actions, and apparently Sherlock can still read the movements of his body as well as ever, because he knows that John is going to strike him as soon as John lifts his hand.

He doesn't move out of the way. The punch connects, solid and heavy, and Sherlock stumbles back a step thanks to the momentum behind it. The hit hurts, and Sherlock raises one hand to his jaw. That will leave a bruise, but he knows he deserves it. Deserves worse.

John lifts his arm again, as though he is going to punch Sherlock a second time, and then drops it to his side. Instead, he stumbles over to the sofa and drops onto it, looking bewildered and hurt. Sherlock's chest aches.

"How are you here?" he asks, and Sherlock steps closer, then again, until he is close enough to sit on the sofa next to John. He doesn't.

"Moriarty left a whole empire behind," Sherlock says, and John winces slightly, grips his cast with his good hand. "I had to leave to make sure they wouldn't come after you. Make sure that they wouldn't be a danger anymore."

"Oh, so you did this for _me_," John says, tone artificially light, but Sherlock knows that he shouldn't agree. He knows that tone, has fallen into the trap of it more than once, and so he doesn't say yes.

"It was necessary," he says instead.

John's eyes are sparking now, and the last time he saw John this angry, he shot someone for breaking Sherlock's arm. He hopes that John's gun is safely locked away.

"You left me behind, Sherlock, you let me think that you were _dead_!" He shouts the last word, and it echoes in the sudden silence of the room.

"John –" Sherlock shakes his head, although he doesn't know why. It's not as though he can deny John's accusations.

"And now you reappear and expect me to... what? Just roll over and forgive you? If nothing else, then you should have taken me with you!"

The thought of John in danger because of Sherlock, of being hurt and maybe killed because he was helping to destroy the work of someone he shouldn't have been involved with at all makes Sherlock shiver. "John –"

"I'm planning your bloody _Memorial_, Sherlock. Three years you've been gone. Three years! And all this time you've been fine? All this time you've been alive and just forgot to mention it? Even bloody _Moran_ knew you were fine, but I'm not worth telling?" His voice has risen by the end of his speech, and his eyes are burning with anger, but he is still the most beautiful thing Sherlock has ever seen.

"John," he says, seems to be all he can say, his reasoning and facts all bubbling within him but unable to escape in the face of John's anger, and the broken look in his eyes. "I owe you a thousand apologies –"

"You owe me more than that, Sherlock! You owe me the last three years, you owe me enough respect that you don't lie to me about something like this, and you owe me an explanation for why you let me _grieve_ for you." John wipes a hand over his eyes, and the knowledge that he is near to tears hurts somewhere deep in Sherlock's chest.

"It was necessary, John," he repeats, voice unable to reach above a whisper. It _was_ necessary, he knows that, but the words seem so weak when faced with what his actions have done to the person he is closest to in the world. _Was_ closest to.

John looks at him then, serious and sad, and Sherlock makes sure he's not hiding anything on his face. He lets John see how much he's wanted to come home, to tell John, to not have to leave at all. He tries to show John the sleepless nights and the longing and the fact that he had left his heart here, with John, the entire time he was gone.

"How could you? How could you just leave me here? How could you not tell me?" John asks, and his anger has died away to sorrow. His face looks almost like it did at the side of Sherlock's grave, and Sherlock can't stay away from him any longer. He sits down next to John, the sofa a familiar comfort, then lifts one arm, slowly, and places it onto John's shoulder. John shudders, but doesn't move back, doesn't shrug it off, so Sherlock repeats the gesture with his other hand, and then finally, finally, pulls John close.

John fits underneath Sherlock's chin exactly as he used to, and underneath the new aftershave he still smells the same, and he is warm in Sherlock's arms and Sherlock doesn't ever want to let go.

"I can leave, if you'd like," Sherlock says into John's hair, the texture of the strands familiar against his lips. He means it, of course he does, but there is nothing he wants to happen less in the world than John stepping away from him, John asking him to leave and never seeing him again.

John shakes his head, slightly. "I've wanted you back from the moment you left, Sherlock," John says quietly. "And I'm furious with you, so furious and... hurt... but I don't want you to leave. I never wanted that."

Relief suffuses Sherlock's whole body, and he slumps. They sit in silence, entwined, breathing in unison and pressed close, John sniffing almost angrily against his chest.

"So," Sherlock says after long moments have passed, breaking the silence. He ignores the roughness of his voice. "How badly do you mangle the violin when you attempt to play it?"

John lets out a choked laugh, but it's a laugh nonetheless, and jabs Sherlock in the ribs. "I sound better than you did when you played it at 3am." Sherlock throws back his head and laughs.

Maybe everything will end up alright after all.

He still needs to explain things to John, and attempt to make up for his disappearance, and John will be angry for a while, possibly a long while, and maybe it can never return to how it used to be, but Sherlock doesn't care about any of that for the moment.

He's home.


End file.
